succeeds to the title.
And later that same year, 1598, a very strange thing happens. King James VI, five years away from the Union of the Crowns, a religious reformer who is in line to succeed Elizabeth as Defender of the Faith, is sailing down the Forth towards Leith when, just off Aberlady Bay, a great storm springs up. One of his escort ships is sunk, and the King is landed down the coast at Port Seton. From there, he's loaded into a coach and taken not to his palace, Holyroodhouse, but to Edinburgh Castle, up on its rock, and impregnable even then, taken to the King's Citadel, to which he retreated when he was under threat.
`Because you see, what I believe had really happened was this. You might not think it now, as you look across those sand-flats at low tide, as some of us who live here like to do, but in those times, before the bay was silted up, Aberlady was a port; the port of the Earl of Kinture.
And on that day, as the royal fleet sailed past, in bad weather, the Earl, with his new Catholic wife, and his new alliance by marriage with France, sent his men to sea, to attack James Stuart, the future King of England, where he was at his most vulnerable, and to kill him. They almost succeeded, but in the confusion, the King's ship escaped, and he fled for his life, back not to his unprotected palace, where his own father once murdered his mother's favourite, but to the safety of his citadel. Not to have a party to celebrate his lucky escape, but to defend himself against any renewed insurrection.' Skinner punched the air with a finger to emphasise his words.
Kinture sat unmoving, head bowed, in his wheelchair as the policeman continued. 'So there was the Earl, right in the noble shit. The King was a slow thinker, and he might not have known for certain where his attackers came from, but eventually he'd work it out.
`But, on the other hand, the last thing that James wanted at that time, with old Elizabeth on her last legs, was for the English kingmakers to see any sign of weakness in Scotland, or in his position.
`That, Lord Kinture, was when James Carr, the King's namesake and your murderous ancestor, had his brainwave. He summoned the local clergy and announced that the King's ship had been attacked by diabolical forces, and that a storm had been raised against his life by the power of witchcraft.
And he denounced as the head of the coven Agnes Tod, and with her, Christian Dunn and Mary Lewis, the witnesses to his daughter's birth. So these women, these good women, who had wee Elizabeth baptised in Christ, were taken. Agnes, with her fatherless child, was already a figure of scorn, so there was no outcry by the people. The women were put to the torture. They confessed, of course. They'd have confessed to anything to stop the inquisitor's boot from crushing their feet. And James, the local judge, jury and executioner, sentenced them to a witches' death on an old hill on his land which had been a centre of local superstition since time immemorial. They were dragged up there, tied to trees, strangled and burned. With a single, brutal act, the Earl of Kinture had rid himself of a problem, and built himself a barrier against the possible vengeance of the King.
`But there was one other thing to be done. Agnes had a sister, Matilda. The Earl secured her compliance, by fear perhaps, but no doubt by bribery too. Matilda was given Elizabeth, to bring up. And she was given something else. The Bible, gifted to the Earl's grandfather by the King's grandfather, his friend. Finally, just in case the King was not mollified by Kinture's resolute defence of the royal person, he and Matilda invented the Witches' Curse. They wrote it in that fine Bible, and Matilda passed its secret on to Elizabeth as the truth, with the strange injunction that it should be revealed only to Kinture, the man who made it up, or to the King, the man it was invented to fool.
Elizabeth did as she was told by her aunt and the story passed into legend, to dominate the lives of the women of her line through generations, until twenty years ago, when the latest of them told her story to a tape recorder.'
Skinner leaned back against the desk. 'You know,' he said, `Darren Atkinson thinks that detecting is like golf, about keeping your nerve and concentration when things get tough. It can be, but it's a team game too, and I've got some very good players. Good enough to uncover the crimes of your ancestor, four centuries ago, and — who knows — to set history right.
`They've put together the story of the Kinture treason and of the murder of Agnes Tod which covered it up. Most of it can be proved categorically, the rest would stand up beyond reasonable doubt in a modern court of justice, if there were any point to it.'
Kinture looked up, with tears staining his white face. 'I can prove the rest for you,' he croaked.
In 1977 a mad old woman came along from Longniddry, in a taxi, to see my pa. She was rambling; she went on that the curse had been betrayed; that it had been told to a common outsider. The old crone believed that she was a witch. She said that she would call down her powers against the outsider, but that Pa must do everything in his power to keep the secret.
Eventually Pa realised that the old woman was in deadly earnest. Mad or not, she believed everything she was saying. He mollified her and delivered her back home. Then he searched our family records, and he found a deathbed document, written and sealed by James Carr himself, confessing to the events you have just described, with the curse written down in full.
`Pa told Ma and me the story. The three of us decided that some things are best left undisturbed. So the old lady's secret was kept, and James Carr's confession was hidden once more. I still have it, though.' He wheeled himself over to the mahogany desk, and opened a drawer. He reached inside and pulled a lever. Slowly, a leather panel in the centre of the desktop swung up to reveal a secret compartment. Kinture took out a thick, folded document, yellow with age and with a broken red seal, and handed it to Skinner. 'Here, take the damn thing. Do with it what you think best.'
The policeman looked at the Marquis, long and hard. Twice, Martin thought that he wanted to speak, but found the words caught in his throat. But finally, he reached out his hand and took the paper. 'Thank you,' he said. 'I know exactly what I'm going to do with it. There's a man at Edinburgh University who deserves some glory, and a young woman in Germany who deserves to be relieved of a burden.' He paused. 'One thing, though. Don't go trying to reclaim the Kinture Bible. The Soutar line have earned the right to it.'
He looked across at Martin. 'So, Andy, that's one of our two investigations at an end. The trouble is, it seems to have absolutely bugger all to do with the other one. James Carr's been dead for over three hundred and fifty years, but in the here and now there's another murderer about on his land, and he has to be caught too, before he's one day older!
And in that, My Lord, from having been a bloody nuisance up till now, you have a chance to help! So has Arthur Highfield, if he's here. Could you ask him to join us, please? There are a few things he may be able to tell me.'
Kinture picked up a phone from the desk, pressed a button and did as Skinner asked.
`Good,' said the policeman. Now, while we're waiting for him, I want to ask you about something odd that you said to me last Sunday. I thought it was a throwaway line at the time, but it may be one of the last pieces of a bloody difficult jigsaw!'
Sixty-six
‘This is the oddest breakfast I've ever had, I think,' said Bob. He, Sarah, Alex and Andy, sat round the conservatory table, just after nine-forty-five, surveying the detritus of boiled eggs, beef tomatoes, baguettes, and coffee. Beside them Jazz slurped happily, as his sister introduced him to the taste of another new baby-food.
‘For the last twelve hours, my life's been turning somersaults. I've never known a week quite like this, for twists and turns, damn few of them expected. But I can see the picture now. I know who I'm after, although whether I'll be able to catch my quarry is something else.'
He stared at the ceiling. Sarah and Alex looked at him. This was a mood new to both of them.
It was Andy who broke the silence. 'Bob. What the Marquis said back there, about the old woman calling down her powers and everything. I mean, that's all balls, and you mustn't let yourself dwell on it.'
Bob looked at him and smiled. 'Don't worry, Andy. I won't do that. Hector Kinture was right about one thing. Some things are best left undisturbed, and that one will be.'
He looked at the ceiling once more, focusing on a dark patch on the paintwork. 'All the same, faith is a dangerous thing. And old Nana Soutar had plenty of that; four centuries of it, in fact.
She believed beyond all reason in the legend of Agnes Tod. The whole world's built on faith, you know, Andy
